What generation of Irish people have had it the toughest?

Those born circa 1910.....lived and could recall the war of independence,civil war,great depression,stagnation of new state taking off and world war 2 by the age of 35

Letree wrote: »

Famine

That was pre-independence

I Would say those living around the 1900-1930 timespan.

kildare lad wrote: »

any generations that was born before the 50's... ive two uncles who have a 20 year age gap between them and the difference in the upbringing the older one had compared to the younger one is huge, the older one was born in the 40's. They had no electricity,running water, outhouse for a toilet, as soon he could work he had to leave school,no family car, fairly harsh catholic bogtotting schooling, grew all there own food, went to england at 18 etc... compared to his brother who was born in the late sixties who had it a lot handier.

You have to admire the women back then when it came to rearing families. Many had large families and to rear the kids and take care of the house, with none of the utililies we take for granted now they had it real tough. The type of women like my 2 nannies is sadly long gone in Irish society.

From Monty Python scetch:

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

My grandparents generation definitely lived through tough times. They were born pre-independence but lived through civil war, The Emergency, the big snow of 1947, and general poorness we couldn't even imagine nowadays.

I remember my Grandfather telling us that when he was a lad one of his peers said "one day a man will earn £1 a week wages" they laughed at him!

I was born in the 70s and I remember well going to bed or being in school hungry in the 80s. Always had a good dinner but as hard as my father worked or my mother tried, if porridge wasn't there we were fvcked.